EP56 第几声 Which Tone?

 Chinese 101: Four Chinese tones and their pronoun-cation rules

 

Language Tips: Funny stories related to misunderstanding of Chinese tones

 

Story of The Day: Proficiency in a particular field 一技之长 yī jì zhī cháng

 

 

Dialogue:

 

A: 我换了新眼睛。

 

wǒ huàn le xīn yǎn jīng。

 

I’ve changed new eyes.

 

B：你说什么？

 

nǐ shuō shén me？

 

What? 

 

A：我换了新眼睛。

 

wǒ huàn le xīn yǎn jīng 。

 

I’ve changed new eyes.

 

B：你是不是想说，你换了新眼镜，eyeglasses?

 

nǐ shì bú shì xiǎng shuō ，nǐ huàn le xīn yǎn jìng ?

 

Are you trying to say, that you’ve just changed new “yǎn jìng”, eyeglasses?

 

A：是的！可以再说一遍吗？

 

shì de ！kě yǐ zài shuō yī biàn ma？

 

Yes! Could you say it one more time?

 

B：眼镜。

 

yǎn jìng 。

 

Eyeglasses.

 

A：第几声？

 

dì jǐ shēng?

 

Which tone is it?

 

B：眼睛，睛是第一声；眼镜，镜是第四声。

 

yǎn jīng ，jīng shì dì yī shēng ；yǎn jìng ，jìng shì dì sì shēng

 

yǎn jīng ，jīng is the first tone ；yǎn jìng ，jìng is the fourth tone.

 

A：我换了新眼镜。

 

wǒ huàn le xīn yǎn jìng 。

 

I’ve changed new eyeglasses.

 

Words & expressions:

 

【换】huàn：change

 

【新】xīn：new

 

【眼睛】yǎn jīng：eyes

 

【眼镜】yǎn jìng：eyeglasses

 

【再说一遍】zài shuō yī biàn：say one more time

 

Hosts: Liu Min & Jessica

 

Programme Editor: Wang Xiaoyu

 

Producer: Lu Chang